Race pits Jim Jordan against Oberlin schoolteacher

jackson@sanduskyregister.comThe Fourth District U.S. House race pits a veteran Republican politician against a Democratic kindergarten teacher in Oberlin making her first race for public office.U.S. Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Urbana, served for years in Ohio's legislature before being elected to the U.S. House in 2006. Jordan's district, redrawn after the 2010 census, includes portions of 14 counties, including southern Erie County, Huron County and Sandusky County.Janet Garrett is a veteran kindergarten teacher who plans to retire after the current school year. She is a former Peace Corps volunteer and a veteran political activist, but the race for Congress is her first campaign.Garrett said she began thinking about a race for Congress two years ago when she met Rep. Jordan. She found herself in his district after the district lines were changed, but Garrett much preferred her previous representative, U.S. Rep. Marcy Kaptur, D-Toledo."I just think that he is not representing this district at all," she said. "He gets a lot of money from the Koch brothers. He seems to be a Koch brothers representative rather than a Fourth District representative.""I look around me and I see that education is being destroyed," she said. "Our middle class is collapsing. Our environment is having a lot of problems."Garrett wrote an op-ed piece for the Washington Post describing the high stakes tests being given to kindergarten students in Ohio."This is madness," she said. "Our educational system should be driven by creativity, problem solving and, above all, a love of learning. All of these high stakes tests are killing all of that."Garrett said she favors raising the minimum wage and working to create green jobs. Jordan has law and education degrees and was a champion high school and college wrestler and also a wrestling coach before turning his attention to politics.Jordan says his top issues include out of control government speeding and the resulting huge national debt.Every family, local government and local business has had to get its spending under control, and it's time for the federal government to do that, too, Jordan argues. The National Taxpayers Union recently gave Jordan an "A" rating and gave him the 2013 "Taxpayers Friend Award" for his efforts to control spending. Jordan said he keeps his staff small and gives back much of the budget for his office to the U.S. treasury. In fact, he ranked 2nd out of 435 members in saving money. The guy in first place left early to run for governor, Jordan said.Jordan said he also has devoted much of his time in the House to holding the Obama administration accountable. He has worked on the investigation of the deaths of four Americans in Benghazi, Libya, and also has focused on the alleged efforts of the Internal Revenue Service to target conservative organizations.There's no bigger attack on freedom than when the government targets people for their beliefs, Jordan said."That is just as wrong as it gets," he said.